Friday, May 04, 2007

"The Runs Turned Into Blood"

"The Runs Turned Into Blood"

Club Amigo Atlantico Mike and Jo ~ Canada
February 2006

We arrived at club Amigo in Holguin Cuba at 2:00 pm on the 18th of January .Our whole group that flew in from Toronto from Sunquest had been over booked. We sat in the lobby with our luggage till almost 7:30 pm that night. We were put in a part of the resort we were told by the staff that was shut down. We saw why really quick the rooms were very run down they had roaches, no running water, very dirty. We were told we would have to stay there for two days because there was nothing else available so for both nights we slept over the blankets not opening any of our luggage so we would not get any bugs.

On the Friday we were told to be at the desk for 10:00 am to fix this mess, but of coarse the rooms were not ready by this time there were some of the people in our group yelling at the staff we were keeping our cool as much as we could .We were told to come back at 2:00 pm .At 2:00 we returned sure enough they still were not ready now we were told 4:30 at this time they said a bit longer this is were we said enough everyone else at this point had their rooms but us .We asked them why cause we did not scream at them finally we were given a room not the one we were suppose to get because that room did not have a safe that worked we were told not too many safes worked they had a problem with that .

Our new room did not have bugs but was not much better air conditioner only worked when it felt like it we had hot water only two times on our whole trip never got face cloths received one new towel the whole trip only because it was soaking wet the maid had no choice to give us a new one. We spoke to the sunquest agent at the resort he apologized and told us we could be compensated for it .At first he told us we would get a bottle of rum , then he said a tour to Holguin but did not impress us because by this point we already lost almost two days we don’t want to loose another day being on a bus going sight seeing , then he wanted to give us a lobster dinner that I’m not that fussy on , then he told us we would all receive some money back on our trip from Sunquest at the end of the trip it was a different story and said we’d have to talk to our travel agent .

This resort was supposed to be a three and a half star I would of gave it a two. Threw the whole resort there was so much damaged starting with lamp posts broken wires hanging out , cement slabs cracked over holes were someone heavy enough could have went threw no warning signs , the couches in the lobby very dirty, ripped , springs broke , the curtains in most of the rooms were hanging half on the rods .

In the week we were there we saw the pool get cleaned only twice, watched one of the chamber maids cleaning in the lobby with toilet paper as a rag, witch was surprising because we had trouble getting it for our room, we had to go to the front desk to get some they would not put any in the rooms when they were cleaning. Threw the whole resort you could smell the sewer system that I don’t think worked real well.

During the week almost everyone we talked to had got some type of bug that stayed with them for at least 24 hours upset stomach the runs and cramping. On the Monday my husband got it, he had to stay close to our room so he could get to the washroom quick, the day we left to come home I started the cramping and sure enough that night the runs started the next day the pains became more intense and the runs turned into blood I was rushed to the hospital. I spent six days getting tests taken that weren’t all that pleasant , blood work to were my arms are so bruised ,my blood count dropped to a level were I was almost given a transfusion . In the end the doctors said it was a bad bug I brought back from Cuba. I lost all together 8 days of work because of this. This was the worst trip of my life more like scary make’s me look twice at whom I book with or their standards.

"Don't Think I'll Go Back"

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Reviews: Bad to Horrible

Trying to Forget!

Trying to Forget!

By A Yahoo! User from Hamilton Ontario
10/16/06
Overall:
Service
Cleanliness
Location
Value
Last Visit:
October 2006

We returned from the Grand Playa Turquesa a week ago. For sure this vacation will be one to forget as soon as we can. We have been several times in Cuba and D. Republic so far always in hotels 4 and 4 ½ stars. Grand Flamenco, LTI Costa Verde, Melia Varadero and he haven’t experienced anything similar like on this vacation. We arrived (two of us with the 11 month infant) on Oct 2nd around 4:30 AM using Hola Sun package from Toronto. When we approached the front desk there was an unpleasant surprise. Lady at the front desk told that they have a “little” problem. What she has explained to us is that Hola Sun owns the hotel (and other hotels in the area) a lot of money and that they decided to collect the money from the guests at the arriving point! She asked us for a deposit of 200 CUC ($250 Cdn) just for the first day and that our tour operator should reimbursed us, and also she explained that they have charged all other passengers arrived a day before using same tour operator.

We didn’t bring $250 in cache because we paid our vacation in full (all inclusive) prior to departure to Hola Sun and I didn’t want to give them my credit card number. She sad that is nothing she can do until we pay the deposit. If we didn’t have an infant with us we would turn around and look for another hotel in the area. Our baby was tired from the trip and hungry so she has started crying. I demanded to speak with somebody fro the higher authority in the hotel and she called “customer relation person” (her name starts with “Y”). We were waiting for the 45 minutes until she arrived from her room. She just repeated the same story and here we are after the long trip in the lobby of the hotel with crying baby 5:30 in the morning. Usually guests are greeted with Mr. And Mrs. XYZ but we suddenly become “YOU TWO”! They didn’t offer to us a glass of water at least or asked us if we need anything for a baby at this point. After an hour and half of waiting and an hour of baby crying they decided to give us a room just for 2 hours, and literally they throw us out after two hours back to the lobby. So we were waiting in the lobby until 9:00AM when I called our travel agent (left a message to call us back to GPT) in Canada who called Hola Sun in Toronto (this call from the hotel for a 45 seconds were charged 4.75 CUC – they told us that 1 minute is 2 CUC – strange math). I requested a receipt for this call and I have told it will be sent to room and didn’t happen! Also tried to speak with manager of the hotel and I was told that it will be arranged but it didn’t happen.

So after five and half ours and humiliation on the front desk were we told that things are settling down and that we will get the room but with the note that our vacation is still haven’t been paid! So we were tired, angry, frustrated, and we lost most of the first day of our vacation. There is more to this story but I guess you got the point of GPT professional service! Official people in the this hotel are full of crap. I contacted Occidental Hotels and Hola Sun but no answers yet.

Other people have explained more about resort. I would say that food is not on the level of 4 ½ star hotel (you wont be hungry but food is repetitive every day with not much of a choice). Just to mention that we had some small bugs (ants) crawling in our room so be careful if you have kids or if you have any food in the room!

There were two positive things: First, Cuban people that working in the hotel and that we tipped on every occasion and even we left our baby stroller and some of the baby clothes to one of the employees and beautiful beach.

We WILL NEVER go back or visit to any of Occidental hotels again. People that using Hola Sun operator, BEWARE!

Petty Theft

Petty Theft

By A Yahoo! User from beverley
09/03/05
Overall:
Service
Cleanliness
Location
Value
Last Visit:
August 2005
Great for:
Families, Beds, Pool

we got there and the room was fabulous likewise the food, staff and the hotel itself but over the 14 days we had many items stolen, these included armani sunglasses, towels (our own and the hotels whisch we had to pay for), a top, shoes, sun cream and our friends bracelet and the hotel did nothing to help us atall. i would advise people to go but not to leave anything on the sun beds even towels and keep everything in the safe. and take a torch as the night times are sometimes very dark and in that hotel i saw every bit of wildlife including tarantulas, cockroaches, biting ants and also pretty things like humming birds and hermit crabs. But i certainly will never go back there or to cuba itself as we had many problems at customs (advice-DO NOT take a laptop into the country)

Stank Like Human Urine

Self-Service Hotel

Double crossing Raul

Double Crossing Raul

You Cuban government workers whose job it is to come to this blog to check up on what we're doing have to feel stupid right about now. Even the poorest Americans here are doing far better than you. They have toilet paper, good food and other regular creature comforts that accompany normal 21st Century living. Sure we have homelessness but it appears you have even more than we do and if a good sized hurricane rolls through Cuba millions of you will join the ranks. Raul has elevated foreigners and made you their servants for less money than we can buy a bag of peanuts here. Don't you feel double crossed? I have exposed you to an alternative economic model that will transform Cuba into a wealthy nation. You've given the Castro boys a half century to make you prosperous. How much longer do you think it will take?

Okay so you're feeling stupid right about now but this is not the time to waller in self pity. You need a plan to get out of this swindle. Actually, you are already well on the way to freeing yourselves. Namely, stop working and only do work when it is demanded of you. We'll explain to any tourists that still plan to travel to Cuba that all the hotels are now self-service and if they want to address a Cuban they better be holding up money and I'm talking the kind that folds. Please disable all machinery to make it impossible to do work. Please feel free to swipe anything and everything from the tourists hotels and other foreign investments that suits you. Does your house need a door knob or some plumbing? Help yourself! You've earned it. You must spread the word of this planned labor strike. Don't worry about damaging the machinery because we're coming real soon to put all that stuff into the museum and replacing it with the cutting edge stuff that will really knock your socks off!

The reality Cubanos is, it is YOU (11 million Cubans) against Raul and a few hundred of his well off henchmen who are all living pretty well. Share what little food and other comforts that you have with one another to sustain yourselves. Remember, the slower you work the sooner you will reap your reward. So everybody get ready and do nothing...except maybe putting some of those old machines out to pasture. Trabajo no mas! Pobreza no mas!
Raul no mas!

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Salmonella Food Poisoning!!

Salmonella Food Poisoning!!

Traveler rating:
Coba: Gran Bahia Principe Coba: "Watch out for salmonella!"
TRAVELBUGTeesside, TEESSIDE, ENGLAND Apr 22, 2007

My experience with this property took place in:
April, 2007
Would I recommend this hotel to my best friend? probably not
My ratings for this hotel are:
Rooms
Location
Cleanliness
Check in / front desk
Service
Business service
I recommend this hotel for: Young singles, An amazing honeymoon, A romantic getaway, Girlfriend getaway, People with disabilities, Families with young children, Families with teenagers, Tourists
I selected this hotel because ... Beach / Sun, Museums / Cultural / Historical sites, Outdoor / Adventure, Great food / Wine
My age: 35-49
Traveling group: Family with teenagers
My visit was for: Quality time with family
We did not know what to expect when we arrived at this resort after reading varied reviews onTrip Advisor. Straight away we encountered problems with the rooms. We had upgraded and asked for a double room for ourselves and a twin bedded room for our sons aged 17 and 19 near ours. A simple request you might think with a site as large as this but no! Apparently, each block contains only one type of room and if we wanted our sons to have twin beds we had to exile them to a block at the other end of the site!! Despite the king size bed being made up of two singles pushed together they would not supply two mattresses so that the boys did not have to sleep together. Our request was passed on from one department to another and despite our rep's intervention, we got nowhere.

Despite this, we really enjoyed our stay but found it tiresome to have to get up at 7am (6.30am in some parts of the resort) to put towels out to reserve loungers which you had to do if you wanted to lie in the sun.

The buffet food at the resort was plentiful but although there was a large selection, it was of variable quality and didn't change much from day to day and we found the Mikado and Oriental a la carte restaurants to be the best of an indifferent bunch. Unfortunately my eldest son started with gastric problems the day before we left and had a dreadful journey home. We took him straght to the doctor when we got back to discover that he had salmonella food poisoning!! Since we only ever ate at the hotel during our stay we can be 100% certain he contracted it at the Gran Bahia- not a very nice holiday souvenir!!

No Toilet Paper

No Toilet Paper

Going to a place like Cuba for a vacation is a wonderful experience that all lefties, liberals and tyrant supporters should partake. Their distorted view of economics and actual reality on the island make them sitting ducks for the socialist treatment. While we hate that their tourist vacation investment dollars and euros prop up Raul, you better believe that Canadians and Europeans are returning home in droves converted by their experience. True, most still do not have a clue of what is the right thing to do concerning Cuba. But they sure as hell know what's going on there now is completely wrong. Somehow not having adequate toilet paper, clean drinking water and decent food for a week or two has had the effect of wrenching the tourists' eyes open and clearing the ear canals. These tourists enter Cuba with their hearts in their hand filled with ideology and good will then have their wallet lifted and their kid's shoes stolen by the locals. They return home wondering why this happened to them and try to brush it off as just bad luck.

But they are now feeling a tad of the pain of socialism. With open eyes they will also see that Cubans are poor because Raul grabs all of their labor output then pays an average of fifty cents a day in wages. Tourists might even notice that the so called world class health care does not include actual medicine unless you have hard currency to pay for it. Perhaps they could even hear about the terrible food shortages now in Venezuela which is under no embargo whatsoever. The embargo they and Cuba experience is the same embargo you and I face every time we enter a place of business. That is, we must have credit or cash in hand or we are embargoed from buying anything. Castro has shafted everyone in business and in pleasure so Cuba has NO more credit. How productive would you be for fifty cents a day? Exactly. The Cuban people do not create enough wealth to even pay for basic necessities because it doesn't pay unless your last name is Castro. When Cubans one day soon own ALL their own labor then they will be completely able to provide for themselves, their family and the needs of the nation. They will put together a first class vacation package as well that WILL make you want to return.

Tourist Robbed

Monday, April 30, 2007

Groped and Ogled

Groped and Ogled

Fantasy Island

Fantasy Island

Yes...that is what Cuba has become - fantasy island. Why? Well for starters, the Cuba government pretends to pay Cubans a salary and the Cubans pretend to work. The government also pretends to run all the commercial industries and retail businesses yet very little is produced and not much is available for Cubans to buy. The government pretends to offer universal health care to all Cubans which includes pretending they can do so without providing actual free medication. Raul Castro pretends to offer 5 star all-inclusive tourist hotels for real cheap. Then the Cuban workers pretend they never heard about that deal but they just happen to be able to get hold of some water, toilet paper and other Cuban luxuries provided the tourist will give..."teep." To get tips the Cuban worker will pretend to even like tourists to gain their confidence and pull on their heart strings. Then once the tourist's guard is down the Cuban sells them a blank CD purported to be their latests hits from their Cuban combo or they hustle a box of banana leaf fake cigars to the tourist suckers. Then the tourist pretends to understand and not feel violated by these frauds, pick-pocketing's and bag snatching. Also the tourists pretend that their tourist dollars and euros are not arming Raul's goons so he can oppress the Cuban people . They pretend Cubans don't want democracy or the most basic consumer goods like toilet paper or human rights like freedom of speech. Some pretend that Cubans actually can speak freely while ignoring the hundreds in dungeons for doing just that. They pretend they know everything about Cuba so they don't even bother looking at all of the widely available information about 49 years of total tyranny under Castro. Then the tourist is abused on their vacation in Cuba and either pretends to know the reason for their bad time ( loosely referred to as the embargo or blockade for the more dramatic) and simply forgets it. But a few raise hell about their bad trips on some tourist chat board. So to counteract this bad PR the Cuban government also goes onto these chat boards and pretends to be satisfied tourists to Cuba and raves about such normal things as "the elevator worked all week long!" So new prospective tourists read all the glowing fake reviews from the Cuban government, pretend they know what they are doing and book a holiday to Cuba. Some Cuban pretends to give them some bottled water that is actually Havana tap water, the tourist becomes violently ill and pretends he know what got him ill - the spicy food or perhaps the fish. So the cycle begins all over again. These tourists continue to pretend that they do not keep Raul in power with their tourist hard currency. However, soon tourists will start to die from this third world treatment disguised as healthy accommodations and then maybe these tourists will finally grow up and quit pretending.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

1000 Year Right

Sick as a Dog

Sick as a Dog


More Roaches

More Roaches